In the long history of American literary scholarship, few figures embody the transition from nineteenth-century genteel letters to modern academic criticism as thoroughly as Henry Augustin Beers. Born on July 2, 1847, in Buffalo, New York, and dying on September 7, 1926, in New Haven, Connecticut, Beers spent nearly his entire adult life at Yale University, where his slight frame became a beloved fixture on campus fo…
“Shakspere is the most universal of writers. He touches more men at more points than Homer, or Dante, or Goethe. The deepest wisdom, the sweetest poetry, the widest range of character, are combined in his plays.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
In the winter twilight of a small upstate New York village, where snow lay thick upon the Genesee Valley, John Vance Cheney was born on December 29, 1848, in Groveland, New York. His life would span a transformative period in American literature, carrying him from the fading embers of Romanticism to the threshold of Modernism, from the dusty offices of a country law practice to the grand reading rooms of two of Ameri…
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Devotional Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Spirituality, Joy